SomNOG9 Workshops: Cybersecurity

22 Aug 2026, 08:00 → 24 Aug 2026, 18:00 Africa/Mogadishu

Ibar O. Ibrahim (SomaliREN)

Track 4: Cybersecurity Introduction

The Cybersecurity Track is a new addition to SomNOG9, introduced in direct response to Somalia's growing need for trained cybersecurity practitioners. As a technical community, SomNOG's role is to build the engineers, analysts, and practitioners who make cybersecurity effective in practice. This track provides participants with hands-on, practical skills across the core domains of cybersecurity operations, from understanding how attackers think to detecting and responding to incidents in real-world environments.

The track follows SomNOG's 60:40 practice-to-concept methodology. Participants will spend the majority of their time on hands-on lab exercises, working with real tools and scenarios drawn from operational security environments.

Topics covered include:

• Security operations fundamentals - roles, responsibilities, and the security operations center
• Common attack techniques and how defenders think
• Threat detection and network traffic monitoring
• Incident response - preparation, identification, containment, eradication, and recovery
• Cryptography basics and encryption in practice
• Secure infrastructure design and server hardening
• Hands-on with open-source security and monitoring tools

 

Who should apply:

This track is designed for network engineers, systems administrators, and IT professionals who want to build foundational cybersecurity skills and take their first serious step into security operations. Participants should have a working understanding of networking concepts and Linux systems. No prior cybersecurity experience is required, this track starts from the ground up and builds progressively through hands-on practice.